


Coming of Age

by the_purple_tape



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 20:13:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_purple_tape/pseuds/the_purple_tape
Summary: the fight and the fall outFICTION FICTION FICKKKKTION





	1. THE FIGHT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

~across the pond~

It isn't great quality but you can make out the people in the video and you can tell an animated discussion is happening. The woman is yelling at the man while one child is crying and the other one is wandering off a little. She is screeching. The man looks tired; he is looking around to see if anyone is noticing. Of course they are. He has his hands out in front of him doing a ‘calm down / keep quiet’ motion with them. The person filming gets a little closer and zooms in and hears what happening. 

The woman spits out, “You are completely USELESS! What the fuck is wrong with you? What is your god damn problem?"

The man grumbles something and looks down at the phone in his hand. 

"Put your fucking phone down and spend time with your kids, your wife, your family! Jesus Christ, we just got here," she says coldly, and loudly. “In case you were wondering, it isn’t normal to spend that much time face-timing someone who isn’t your family.” 

At this, he rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and his posture changes. He crosses his arms, his voice raising, “I KNOW you of all people aren’t lecturing me about the time I spend on my phone.” He laughs sarcastically and shakes his head. 

“That’s for WORK,” she cries. 

And he nods like he doesn’t believe a word of it. “You really want to do this now?” 

“Not really but I’m just so sick of your shit. You don’t deserve me. I do EVERYTHING, and you do nothing. You contribute nothing. Its obvious your mind and heart are elsewhere. You’re a bad husband and lately, a bad father. You act like a child and I have to be the fucking grown up ALWAYS. You couldn't fucking function in this life without me.” 

The man pales and you can see his jaw clench. He walks right up to her but doesn’t touch her and says, “I’m done with this bullshit. And by the way, you’re scaring the kids and they are coming with me. We'll talk about this later in private.” She finally looks around and realizes that people are staring and that her kids are crying. They lean in and whisper a few more things to each other that look extremely heated but are not audible to the camera.

He grabs both of their little hands and walks off. She looks around and says “What are you looking at?!?!? So what, I want my kids dressed up at all times and I want a husband who pays attention to me!!! WHATS SO WRONG WITH THAT?!?! FUCK OFF.” Here, the Camera zooms in on her wild eyes and frizzing hair and she puts her middle fingers up toward the gathering crowd. She looks like she can barely show emotion because her face is stuck from the work she's obviously had done. She stalks away and the video cuts out.

 

~stateside~

“G, whatttttttt do you want??? I’m so jetlagged I can’t fill you in right now. Soon I promise.” 

“Timo, you need to see this.” 

A link appears. He clicks on tmz and it’s the fight. He feels tingly in his hands and feet and he starts whispering ‘oh shit oh shit oh shit’ very quietly while he watches the scene unfold.


	2. Lunch Drudgery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this takes place 40 minutes before the recorded argument in Chapter 1.
> 
>  still cookin in the fiction kitchen over here.

The family is seated at lunch. Elizabeth is trying to video her children eating sushi with chopsticks. She starts to record her story but Ford keeps missing his mouth or dropping the food. She sighs heavily and wipes him down, keeps coaxing him and trying until she gets the right shot. Armie is stuffing his face with spicy tuna and says, “I just don’t understand why they have to wear this stuff when they’re flying and traveling. And why can’t they eat normal kid food like chicken nuggets or something?” He shakes his head. Their 2 year old eats like a 40 year old. It seems fucked up that the kid has never had a fish stick. 

No answer from her as she’s concentrating on getting the perfect boomerang for her social media. 

He's still chewing when he starts talking about his time in Europe so far. “I feel really good about this one. It’s like I’ve been under the radar for months and I think it has been exactly what I needed. I’ve loved it actually. People here either don’t know or don’t care who I am. It’s been good being off social media too. I know you're upset I haven't been active and commenting on your posts, but I haven’t felt pulled in to any unnecessary drama or been insulted or angered by stupid, mean people and what they are spouting online. Its been like a freaking cleanse. Of course I’ve missed you all SO MUCH,” he says and he reaches over to tickle his daughter, "but man, I’ve just been able to work and its felt good. No cameras in my face when I walk outside. Just laying low and loving it. And I’m realizing that’s all about to end now that you have arrived.” 

She says “mmm” like she’s acknowledging he is talking but isn’t actually listening. 

He’s been thinking about this subject so much. He is used to the alone time that comes with shooting films in various countries, but this time has been different. Maybe its because he’s coming off one of the longest stretches at ‘home’ he’s had in years. He was looking so forward to that break from work. Maybe he had built it up in his mind too much, but it didn’t feel like the relaxing routine he had craved and expected. For one thing, they were moving to the new house they had bought and were having major renovations done. He thought he would be cooking and working out and reading and spending time with his kids. And there was some of that, to be sure. Yes, he did cook many a breakfast, break a sweat in a CMBYN t shirt, and he was indeed still king of carpool, but in the several months he had at home there was only one weekend, hell actually it was only one day, where they weren’t jetting off to some birthday party or dinner or event, and that solitary Saturday had been because he'd put his foot down and refused to go anywhere. It was a glorious morning of wearing pajamas til noon, laying around and snuggling watching tv and playing with toys. They played guitar and piano and just spent time together. No one rushing around to get out the door. It was amazing. And he realized that if he had it his way, he would have days like that all the time and not just once every 3 months. And if he hadn’t said anything, and since no one asked him what he wanted to do, he wouldn’t have even had that one morning. 

It finally got through his thick skull that he doesn’t plan much if any of his own life anymore. Sure, he knew that his agent and team plan his professional schedule, and yes Elizabeth plans most of their social engagements and keeps their kid's calendars. She's good at that stuff and went to school for business after all. He was more than okay with it at first because he could focus on acting and would just be wherever someone told him to be, easier for him not to worry about the scheduling because they were on the same page. Now they aren't even on the same bookshelf. Of course he had halfway joked but been mostly serious at the same time when he said he would be lost without her. He used to feel that way. But he didn’t realize until the last few months at home that he has literally no say over what he is doing and when. At first he was mad and frustrated with everyone around him, but he quickly realized he was angry with himself, since he had given over the power, no one had taken it from him. He had allowed it to be this way. He stopped making decisions concerning parts of his life, but that didn't mean decisions stopped being made. He just wasn't involved in them and that had to change. Over the last couple months he had thought about it and he had decided to speak to Elizabeth, not at dinner with other couples and not in the car with the kids. Really talk, and hopefully listen too, and see if they could find some common ground. Because their lifestyle was too public and too flashy for him. Maybe he just wasn’t good at being a famous person, he thought. Too outspoken, impetuous, private. She was a good balance for him. Until it tipped too far.

“Do you hear what I’m saying? I’ve decided I don’t want to be featured on your social media anymore.”  
…  
Her head snaps up. “What?” 

“I just think it’s better for my peace of mind and my acting both.” 

“Husband,” she says condescendingly, “your job is dependent on having fans and engaging with them. If you drop off the face of the Earth, you’ll never be in the press or on people’s minds. You know people eat this shit up.” She turns back to her phone.

“That’s not true. When my movies come out, I get plenty of press. But as far as our private lives are concerned, its way too much. I feel like it’s making our moments together seem staged and it looks forced. Can you try and see where I’m coming from? Especially where the kids are concerned. That’s been on my mind a lot lately. Its one thing to share photos and videos of them with friends and family, but they are so young to have so much “content” of them out there in the world among strangers. It almost makes me feel like we aren’t keeping them safe or like we are exploiting them or something.” He sees the look on her face and sighs. “Exploiting isn’t the right word, but it just doesn’t feel right to me, it makes me uncomfortable.”

“I've been working so hard and I just need to get a few hundred thousand more followers,” she says to Armie while looking at Harper and smoothing her hair. “Right now, I’m at 241k and know I can get to 500 or even 1 million if we keep going like we are now." 

He almost spits his beer out. “1 mil??? You want to keep doing what we are doing until you get to 1 million followers. Okay, then 2 mil? And then what? What’s the end goal here, Elizabeth? Because I have a bad feeling that it will never be enough for you.” He looks at the side of her profile while she’s still staring at her kids and obsessively brushing the crumbs off their smocked clothing. He used to be in so in love with this woman. She was everything to him. She was perfect. Now he just felt weird around her. Hell, sometimes he didn't even recognize her. “Just like you having a little work done turned into every possible treatment under the sun that can be done to a woman’s hair / face / skin has been done to yours.” Oh shit. He shouldn’t have gone there. He knew how sensitive she was about being 4 years older than him and looking it. He braces for all hell to break loose. 

He can see her resting bitch face harden and he starts apologizing. “I’m sorry, that was out of line. I shouldn’t have gone into this in a public place. I do really want to discuss this with you but I should have done it in private, not the first meal we’ve all had together in a month. I’m really sorry. I'm being an idiot right now.” 

She relaxes somewhat. “Well, of course you are. Let’s enjoy lunch and walk around a little and we will talk more tonight.”

As lunch is winding up, she brings out a bag with a big planner in it and multiple colored pens and a calendar. She starts going over their next few weeks that they will all be together in London and he is trying so hard not to let it show on his face but a sigh slips out.  
“What???” she says. 

“I don’t want to do fashion shows and fittings and couple's cupping and fancy dinners where we call the paparazzi and take selfies of us holding hands for the next month. I just finished telling you that I want to pull back a little bit. Especially while I’m working on a movie.”

“Well, our lives don’t just stop while you work on a movie,” she says coldly.

“I know that, but this is my job and you have to respect that I know how to do my job. And I'm realizing that to do my job well means less distractions for the few weeks while I’m really into a character and filming something.”

“Oh really, and when did you have THIS epiphany?? That your family is a distraction?” 

She was looking right into his eyes. They both knew the answer to her first question and exactly what she was implying. 

“I didn’t have an epiphany that our family is a distraction. I just don’t think you get how people on set feel about it when you and the kids come around. No one else does that, or if they do come visit, they don't broadcast it. And I promise you they all have families too. Its because they are at work. It would be like me coming to your cooking shows.”

She narrows her eyes. “I don’t move away for months for my job. You do. So we either follow you or we don’t see you, your kids don’t see you. Think about that.”

He did think about it. All the time. How his choice of profession made him so happy and there truly wasn’t anything else he’d rather do, yet it took him away from his greatest joys in life, his kids, on a regular basis. It was so hard for him not to feel guilty about that, and she knew that fully.

“Elizabeth, I know you think that Crema was the start to all of our problems, and you love to blame everything that goes wrong on that movie, but I promise you its not true," he says calmly. “Yes, after Crema was when I started pushing back a little against your schedule for me or your clothes for me or whatever." It started when I got a little self respect as an actor and as a man, he thinks. "I know you just see it as me changing overnight but it’s definitely not when our problems started. I had just been acquiescing to everything before and I started being more vocal. And I know that couldn’t have been easy for you to see such a change in me and the dynamic of our relationship.” He is speaking kindly and he drops his voice a little lower for this next part. “But you have changed, too. And I’ve just tried to roll with it. Hell, change is inevitable and everyone knows the person you married isn’t going to be that same person for the rest of their lives. But it’s like you haven’t given me any room to be allowed to grow or change at all.” Shit, this got too heavy for lunch conversation.

“And let me guess, HE has. HE has given you all the room in the world.” She throws her arms out. “Because with him you have no responsibilities, just fantasies!" 

“Don't do that. This isn't about him. It is about me and I need you to try and hear me when we talk about this later. I’m going to go outside and get some fresh air.” (aka smoke)

He walks outside the restaurant and pulls out his phone so that he doesn’t pull out a cigarette which would just give her more ammunition. He opens his messages and immediately starts scrolling through the last few days of their texts and a little smile crosses his lips. He breathes out and closes his eyes a second to decompress. He thinks about the conversation they had last night, the conversations they’ve had for the last year and the year before that. How they have varied in tone, some heavy some light, some funny and some dead serious, drunk and sober. But respect and love were always there. From day one in every conversation. And maybe Elizabeth is right, maybe it is not necessarily the person but the circumstances that make those conversations so different. He doesn't know. All he knows is that he cannot be an instagram husband. 

She comes outside and stands next to him with the kids in tow. She leans weirdly to the side trying to give her best angle and wants to get a selfie of them kissing or something. He pulls away and that’s when she snaps. He had no idea someone across the street had already seen him walk outside and was snapping his picture. At the moment she started yelling, that person hit record and the video was born.


End file.
